Spiritual teachings by Shunyamurti, the founder and director of the Sat Yoga Institute - a wisdom school, ashram and the home of a vibrant spiritual community based in Costa Rica.

Archive for May 2013

Excerpt: "... But there is a command, within the ego itself, never to silence the mind, never stop thinking, always got to produce thoughts; if you don't produce you're a failure. And so you got to be willing not to produce anything, but to be. Without putting any demands on yourself, or on anyone else, or giving in to anyone’s demands on you. Create a space of freedom to rediscover who you are without starting from any programming, whether that programming has to do with the gender of the body, or the age, or the nationality, or the religion, or the culture, or any of the other factors that determine the stream of thoughts in the mind – but prior to any thoughts, to when there was pure presence, when you were really aware of being, when the world really had this heightened presence, for you, and everything was new and astonishing. Let's return to that state.

And it's very easy to do because you don't do anything, just be. And if the production wants to happen, just go back with the question ‘What is the I, what is the awareness that is watching or listening to these thoughts being produced?’ And you keep going back to that ground of thoughts that are trying to arise and realize that there is a non-arising presence to whom the thoughts are arising. And then just focus on that non-arising presence. And you will find it's already peaceful, it's already happy, it doesn't need anything, it's not angry, there is no desire, has no fear – it's quite content..." Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 30, 2013.

Excerpt: “…In any case Tilopa reduced the whole meditation process to three phrases; they’re easy you can’t forget these. The first one is: no distraction. That may seem simple but it’s not. Second one: no contrivances. Third one: no meditation. What!? These are meditation instructions; no meditation, very interesting. So then the question is, are these commands? Are they descriptions of the state you reach in meditation? Are they qualities of your true Being? Of course they’re in the negative so we are in the via negativa here, he’s not describing what you are or what that state is, he’s just describing what not to do, to be. But, let’s look at it more deeply…” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 23, 2013.

Excerpt: “…And the minute we let go and really relax and forget the ego, or remember that we are not the ego, remember that we are pure potentiality, pure presence, that is inherently without mental activity – it transcends the mind, the real presence of your being, mind is only a tool that is used on limited occasions but otherwise you’re in the silence of Infinite mind, not limited linguistic-based mind. And to live in that Self, is to be free, is to be independent, finally, of all the conditionings and all of the self-limitations. And all of the illusions and the ignorance that come with identifying with a body and an ego mind…” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 9, 2013.

Excerpt: “Sat Yoga is the art of living in the state of love. Love is our natural state. But we have become denaturalized by accepting the programming and the conditioning of the ego mind. The ego mind is generally not in a state of love – which is not news to you I can see. It’s usually in a very judgmental state and mostly attacking others for being judgmental – which is the most self-righteous way of being judgmental – but also attacking oneself, feeling negative and lacking and all the games that the ego plays in order to make itself miserable that we know all too well so I won’t belabor that point, because I’m not here to keep you in that state of misery. I would like you to see that that’s not our natural state or our real state, and it was simply an indoctrination into misery because that is how you become adapted to social living and accept the miserable conditions that most people have to live in. But we don’t have to accept that. We can change our world by changing our perception of who we are and what this reality is...” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 2, 2013.